


Some Things Even Whiskey Won't Fix

by missmungoe



Series: Shanties for the Weary Voyager [10]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Adores Makino (but then can you blame them?), F/M, Light Angst, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 06:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17340014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmungoe/pseuds/missmungoe
Summary: It's a humble request, and a promise that will bind all three of them beyond death:"Tell him I said 'hello'."





	Some Things Even Whiskey Won't Fix

**Author's Note:**

> Due to tumblr's new regulations (and ban on Fun), I've become wary of losing the fics I've only posted there, so I've been going through my writing tag for anything I haven't uploaded to my catalogue here. It's mostly short fics and prompt fills, but I figured someone might still want to read them?
> 
> This was originally written as two separate fics, the first for the flower prompt "yarrow" (cure for a broken heart), and the second because I wanted to write about Ace's meeting with the Red-Hair Pirates, but since they went so well together thematically, I decided to expand and combine them!
> 
> Set during Shanks and Makino's ten-year separation in [Siren's Call](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6428275).

He left for the Grand Line, and a part of her broke beyond repair.

It didn't happen all at once—not like a riptide of grief, catching her unawares and leaving her without legs to stand on. Instead, it came in fits and bursts, a little bit at a time, deceptive like the soft sigh of the surf over the beach where she walked, not a widow's walk because she wasn't his wife, not yet, maybe never (and the first is harder to bear than the second, because hope is always harder than giving up), the sea caressing her ankles with promises Makino knew she couldn't keep. It came in a moment, polishing a glass late in the afternoon and catching herself missing his laughter, and thinking her bar had never felt so empty, or her life so quiet. It came with the sun in the morning, rousing her into wakefulness, bleary-eyed and easily deceived by dream-spells, only to roll over reaching for him, and finding nothing there but an emptiness that felt like it had come to stay.

It came in that one bottle of whiskey on her shelf; the one that was his favourite, and that she couldn't even bear looking at, let alone touch.

But they were small things; her private sorrows. She could endure them.  _It’s not that bad_ , she'd tell herself, resolute.  _It’s not forever._ And it worked, in the beginning. Life went on, in its little ways. She tended to her bar, and her customers. She read her books, and dreamed herself away, to foreign seas and islands, and a ship that had, in the short time it had been moored to her little port, begun to feel like _home_. She made regular visits to Dadan to help with her boys. Small distractions for a busy mind and a longing heart, and it worked, for a time.

It took a while for the last, stubbornly  _enduring_ part of her to finally surrender.

“You want me to teach you how to greet people properly?”

Ace nodded, defiantly determined, and, “I want to meet Captain Red-Hair,” he told her, and something within her _broke._

She felt as it happened, and it was such a _small_ thing that did it—the casual mention of a meeting she wanted for herself more than anything. And it hurt—like a too-big mouthful of hard liquor swallowed to drown her breath; hurt like a wound had opened up in her chest and she'd poured it right in, every last drop in the bottle—but she smiled through it, and indulged his request—showed him _like so,_ and _no, not like that,_ her fingers crossed in a playful suggestion of misbehaviour, and her admonitions gentle and teasing. Her own mother would have cuffed her across the back of her head for similar missteps—and for less foul language—but Makino had none of Emiko's impatience, even with Ace's rising ire as he stumblingly followed her instructions. But his temper she could handle, because her patience was as enduring as her heart, even breaking within her, chipped away with every breath as she observed him mimicking her directions, stubbornly attentive, and she kept her smile until her cheeks ached, and his own patience finally yielded.

The boys ran off, some manner of mischief planned, and Makino waited until she couldn't hear them anymore before she allowed her smile to fall, and with her brow tucked to her knees where she sat, heaved a single, starved breath, and shattered.

And oh, it  _hurt—_ it hurt to breathe like it hurt to laugh, and she wondered how she'd managed both those things before he was in her life, now that he was gone from it. She thought about the bottle of whiskey on her shelf, and his laughter. If a sound could have a taste, they'd be one and the same.

 _Nothing endures like good alcohol, my girl,_ Shanks had told her once, although remembering it now, Makino didn't know if it sounded like a promise or an apology, and tried not to flinch away from the memory of his voice, and the laughter in it, as he'd amended cheekily— _Except maybe my staggeringly good looks! As everyone knows, I am a living exception to all manner of rules and practices. Here's to fighting the establishment! With my gorgeous, exquisitely proportioned face._

A small hand touched her shoulder, and she started—then wiped at her eyes furiously, and before she could even lift them to see who it was, even knowing it wouldn't make a difference, and, “Hey,” Ace said warily, as Makino hurriedly blinked the tears from her lashes, feeling how they spilled over her cheeks. “You okay?”

The reassuring smile she tried for stumbled across her mouth, too broken for her to piece together fast enough. “Oh—yes. I’m fine." She cleared her throat, and ignored how hoarse her voice sounded. "Did you forget something?”

He looked at her, those shrewd dark eyes searching hers for lies and finding them in abundance. Wise beyond his years, Makino thought, and there was none of his earlier bluster now, only a curious understanding, and she didn't have to wonder long if he recognised the hurt she felt as his own, however different his circumstances. But she had a thought to wonder if he knew just _why_ she was hurting.

“I’ll tell him,” Ace said then, hands shoved in his pockets now, and Makino had her answer. “Red-Hair,” he explained, catching her look. “When I see him, I'll tell him about you." He righted his shoulders, the action like a challenge. "Make sure he knows he's missing out."

Her laugh blurted from her, right past the sob lodged like a rock in her throat. And she looked at him, all tiny, too-sharp edges and easily-ignited temper, right to the fierce earnestness behind the declaration—not even an offer, just a statement; an almost aggressive, whether-you-like-it-or-not sort of sentiment that made her want to laugh again, and to keep laughing until she was out of breath.

She felt his whole body stiffen when she tucked her arms around him, that small, overburdened back going rigid under her hands as she pulled him close for a tight hug, and maybe it was a sob that turned her voice thick now and not a laugh, but, “Thank you, Ace,” Makino said, fiercely.

Some of that tightly-wound tension let go of his shoulders, although he didn't reciprocate the hug. But there was a mumble that she couldn't decipher, pressed into her collar, and when she let him go he was looking anywhere but at her eyes, his cheeks burning bright red under his freckles, before he cleared his throat, and told her she better wipe her tears before Luffy saw, or he'd be crying along with her.

Makino laughed at that—another startled thing, wrapped in a sob, and then Luffy was there, drawn by the sound, and it was too late, and her face was too honest for untruths, even well-meant ones—

“Ace—you made Makino cry?!" he shouted, ever the brave little knight to her rescue. "I’ll kick your ass!”

He pounced, and they both went rolling in the dirt, and the bickering that ensued was so loud it sent a startled bird fleeing from a nearby tree, before the door to the cabin slammed open, driving away the rest and revealing Dadan, thunder in her expression and large hands planted on her hips, demanding to know what all the fuss was about. And then, catching sight of Makino's red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, made after the two boys, armed with the promise of no supper, which made her a worthy contender in the all-out brawl that steadily drew every single bandit from the cabin to cheer them on.

And the volume rose, filling the air and the grooves between her ribcage and her heart; tucked itself around the roots, keeping it in place. Not whole, but held together. And she didn't mend completely, in that moment. Like the breaking, it would need to happen bit by bit—through little things, like two loud boys laughing and a good friend full of bluster who'd defend her honour with her bare hands, and a hut full of bandits to fill the remaining silence, if there was any left to fill. Life would go on in his absence, in her uneventful village, but she had an enduring heart, and she’d endure the waiting, even with a broken one, patched together with little kindnesses.

And maybe she’d have a glass of that whiskey.  _Nothing takes the sting off a wound like a good drink,_ and those were his words, too, but she didn't flinch away from them this time, or the memory of his voice, finding instead a smile that didn't stumble, but that remained, sure and steady, listening to the noise around her, which left little room for introspection, and even less room for grief.

 

—

 

It would take a while for him to make good on his promise. Eight years, to be exact, and anyone else would have given up by then, Ace thought. He knew a thing or two about vows, and about grudges, and knew what kind of heart it took to keep one's resolve firm for even half that time, but even he didn't understand what had kept Makino's from wavering for so long.

 _Tell him I said 'hello'_ , she told him, on her birthday when he'd brought her the whiskey he'd pilfered from that fancy-pants liquor store in Hightown, and had asked her what she wanted. She could have asked him for anything—to punch Red-Hair's face in, which was probably deserved, if not for this then for some other wrongdoing; or to tell him all the things Ace had found on her face when he'd asked her, all that longing, and all the hope that almost didn't dare, but that still couldn't help itself—but instead she'd asked for that. The very smallest request imaginable, from a selfless heart that didn't know _how_ to ask, he thought, but even thinking it, he'd recognised that there was more behind it than its simplicity suggested.

He carried it with him across the sea, from East Blue to the Grand Line, across Paradise and all the way to the New World, to an island cold as balls, and where no one in their right mind would make camp, save a single crew and its captain. But then Ace knew enough about Red-Hair by this point to not be surprised.

"I came to offer my thanks," he said, and this was for himself; his gratitude offered, for all it was worth, which might be little to Red-Hair, but for Ace it was everything, remembering the little brother who'd changed _everything_. Without Red-Hair, his life wouldn't be what it was now; Ace was certain of that.

But despite the wariness he'd maintained, understanding that his little brother saw things differently than most, and that the pirate he'd recalled so fondly, who'd given him his treasured straw-hat, might not be as good as he believed, Red-Hair's reaction left no room for it, as he explained his reason for coming.

Ace watched as his face lit up, brightened with a grin that looked utterly comfortable on it, and his delight wasn't feigned when he laughed and asked, "You're Luffy's brother?"

Ace liked him, in that moment. One of the most powerful pirates in the world, and he had no reason to spare a little boy from East Blue even half a thought, let alone his interest, but Red-Hair offered both, and without shame. He asked about him—how he was doing, and if he'd set out to sea yet; if he'd finally hit a growth spurt, and he'd thrown his head back with a laugh when Ace had told him _yes_ , and _like a bean sprout_. He seemed genuinely pleased by everything he had to tell him, his smile warming with every story, and his laughter not far behind it, which was too honest to pretend to be anything else.

And not everyone in his position would have greeted him so warmly, or at all, even with the incentive of a mutual friend. In fact, Ace didn't think any of the other Emperors would have extended the same courtesy, given what he'd heard about them. And he'd heard the rumours about Red-Hair, too—the ones that told of one of the strongest pirates in the world, who was _just_ insane enough to warrant every single one of those rumours, and who'd achieved it all with one arm to boot. And he'd heard the ones that were more unforgiving—that said he was altogether too much like Roger, and just that comparison had left Ace understandably cautious about his own expectations, but not five minutes into a conversation with the man and his suspicions had fled like the cold from his bones, warmed by the fire and the loud laughter filling the cavern, seeming in almost cheerful spite of the roaring blizzard outside.

"You weren't in Fuschia when we were there," Red-Hair said then. He was regarding him curiously, his head cocked a bit to the side. He seemed wholly unperturbed by the cold freezing his breath, even as the fur lining of his coat gleamed with ice-crystals, frozen and then melted by the fire. For all that his easygoing attitude suggested someone unconcerned with schemes greater than the moment right in front of him, Red-Hair was every bit as shrewd as the rumours said.

Ace shook his head. His smile let nothing slip, not even to suggest he was bothered by the cold. The fire was greedy, the flames yellow and red, charring the wood and turning the ceiling of the cave black. He loved the smell—frost and fire, a metallic, sharp-tasting cold. "Luffy grew up there, but I lived further inland. We didn't meet until after you'd left."

Red-Hair nodded, seeming to find nothing irreconcilable about that piece of information and his earlier statement that they were brothers. "But you've been there?" he asked.

Ace made a musing sound, along with a show of considering the question. "I've stopped by once or twice. Between the windmills and the melons, it doesn't have a lot going for it, but I'll concede that it's got some merit. If you know what to look for."

At that, Red-Hair chuckled, and something suddenly tender softened his eyes. "A hidden charm," he agreed.

"Yeah," Ace said, observing him. "Charm."

Red-Hair's first mate was looking between them, his expression wryly amused and entirely too understanding, but Red-Hair ignored him. For his part, Ace was having a hard time keeping his smile from revealing his own amusement, as Red Hair asked, with about as much subtlety as his hair managed just by existing, "And everyone there is...well?"

He wasn't asking about the villagers in general, and only one person would have thought he was, but Luffy was halfway across the world, and it was Ace he was left with, who hadn't been guileless a single day in his life. The world he'd been born into hadn't let him.

He wanted to ask about her, Ace could tell. From their attentive expressions, they all wanted to ask, and it was a feat curbing his amusement so that it wouldn't be too obvious. As obvious as they were all being, anyway.

"Everyone was fine, last I checked," he said, mildly. "They fish, and they farm. Not much else to report. Oh, right—the melon crop was good, last I stopped by. I think that qualifies as exciting news in that place. It won't hit the papers, but I guess it's something. If you're interested in that kind of thing."

Red-Hair said nothing, but he held on to that curious smile. And he wasn't fooling him, Ace knew—Red-Hair knew damn well he was skirting the subject he was really interested in—but felt suddenly like seeing how much it would take to break him.

"Melons," Red-Hair mused. "Right."

"They're thriving," Ace said, and realised he sounded surprisingly defiant; an emotion that belonged to the ten-year-old boy who'd hated seeing her cry. "You won't find any that are better. Or sweeter."

"That right?"

"Mm. They're really beautiful, too." And because he wanted to see his reaction—"People come from the other side of the island just to have a look."

 _Something_ passed through his eyes at that, something darker than his outward good humour, tightening the skin at their corners and the lines that had been lovingly etched there, but Red-Hair kept his smile in place, although that only heightened the effect, and sent a foreboding chill down Ace's arms that had nothing to do with the cold. "Oh, I can imagine," he said. His voice revealed less than his face did. "I've been all over the world, but I've never seen anything that holds a candle to it."

"We're still talking about melons, right?" Ace asked.

"Why," Red-Hair said, grey eyes winking like unsheathed steel in the firelight. "What did you think we were talking about?"

Ace stared back, smile stretching wider. The whole cavern seemed to be holding its breath, save Red-Hair's first mate, who was already smoking but who looked like he needed another.

Red-Hair said nothing else, and Ace looked at the flames gobbling up the wood in the fire pit. And for a spell, no one spoke, even as a hundred unspoken things sat in the freezing air between them, like the glowing embers tearing themselves loose of the fire, held for a moment before the breeze caught them, whisking them away as another flurry drifted in from the cavern mouth. But Red-Hair only watched him, a quiet challenge in the silence that pooled around them; an offer or a request, Ace couldn't tell, and for a moment, was uncertain of how to respond to either.

When he'd been younger, he hadn't understood it—how someone could _choose_ someone else, and everything that came with that choice. He hadn't understood what could have possessed his mother to choose his father, knowing that he wasn't just any other man, and that choosing him meant, at least in the World Government's eyes, choosing death alongside him.

He hadn't understood Makino's choice, either. Red-Hair was so different from her, in manners and personality and lifestyle. And nothing about her suggested a thirst for that kind of life, or that kind of _risk_ ; the gentle, land-bound heart he'd grown up knowing, the one that had taken its time to know _him_ , and not just as his father's son. She had more patience than anyone he knew, and more kindness to give than anyone deserved, and he he hadn't understood what she'd seen in a man who could give her none of the things _she_ deserved; the girl who deserved to be _chosen_ , and more than anyone.

But the years had taught him a thing or two about choices, and about compromise. And maybe it rang a bit too close to home, considering his old man, the choices he'd made and those he hadn't but should have, but Ace was old enough to recognise that Red-Hair wasn't Roger, and that, from the look in his eyes as they talked about her in all but name, as far as _choosing_ went, he'd already done so.

"You know, all this talk of melons is making me thirsty," Red-Hair declared then, his voice filling the cavern, the laughing timbre warmed like the fire thawing the cold. "And I think this meeting calls for a drink—hell, let's make it a party!" He gestured to the crew around him, who all responded with a rousing holler of approval. "Bring out our finest!" Grinning, he looked at Ace, his eyes still holding the embers of a clever, _knowing_ gleam, but the words achingly earnest.

"For the good news of Fuschia's thriving melon crop, I'll spare nothing but the best."

 

—

 

They cornered him while the others were busy dragging out the kegs for the party.

“Hey,” someone muttered, stopping him before he could move to assist. The cold fogged before his face; a white cloud. “We’ve got a question.”

Ace blinked. A whole group of them had formed around him, and they were all leaning in, most of them not even bothering to pretend at even casual disinterest, having sidestepped it entirely in favour of unabashed curiosity.

“Boss won’t ask,” someone else clarified, voice lowered so as not to reach the man in question, seated on the other side of the cave, in the ring of the firelight. “But we will.”

Then, before he could even wager a guess as to what they were so curious about—although he had his suspicions, given their earlier chat—and which they’d brought up with the furtiveness befitting an impending mutiny—

“Is she married? Makino-san.”

His surprise had to show on his face, Ace knew, before amusement chased it off with a grin. He flicked his gaze towards where Red-Hair was seated by the fire, talking with his first mate. His expression didn’t let slip that he was aware of what his men were up to, but Ace caught the shift of his gaze towards him, almost too quick to catch, and knew he wasn’t fooled, although it didn’t touch the easy grin he wore on his mouth. But then Ace had long since learned to tell genuine smiles from those that only pretended to be.

“She’s not,” he said at length, turning his eyes back to the pirates who'd apprehended him, and who weren’t exactly being subtle in their shameless loitering. No one was making an effort to move the kegs, or even to pretend that they were, and they were all hanging on to his every word.

He honestly couldn’t help himself. “There was this one guy, though.”

 _That_  got a reaction. “Guy?” The word was blurted a little too loudly, before the speaker lowered his voice to hiss their collective outrage, “What  _guy_?”

Ace shrugged. “Some farmer,” he said, and tried not to smile, but then remembering the incident in question helped. “Asked her to marry him, maybe two years ago? She wasn’t too happy about it.”

That was an understatement, but he doubted telling them what had transpired would go over well. The bastard had made her cry.

Ace had made  _him_ cry. Of course, he’d never told Makino that.

“What did you do?” a new voice asked, the question suggesting that his thoughts had transferred, or at least that the speaker had picked up on more than he’d intended to let slip, and he looked up to find a pair of eyes watching him, shrewdly assessing. The sharpshooter, Ace thought, spying the rifle slung across his back. Luffy liked him a lot, he remembered.

There was no use pretending ignorance under that focused gaze, and so, “I strapped him to a pole in the middle of his field, and stole six of his melons. Took two days before someone found him, and by then he was half-baked and withered like a prune. It gets hot on Dawn in the summer, you know? But I figured it was an okay trade-off. He’d acted like an ass.” He grinned. “Makino-san made wine from the melons. It sold really well.” He’d told her he’d found them in the wild. She really did believe the best in people.

A grin, quick as a gunshot, and he knew Yasopp hadn’t missed that thought, either, finding tender agreement in the sharp gleam of his eyes. “Good lad,” he chuckled.

Their earlier outrage had lessened somewhat, although he caught a few grumbles, and the muttered suggestion that he should have taken more than six melons, but they seemed mollified by the fact that he’d left the man hung out to dry in a field for two days. His grandfather’s unconventional training methods had finally been good for something.

“Is she happy?” someone asked then, the query slipping under their raised voices, and even attempting subterfuge this was a  _loud_ crew, but Ace caught it, and the expressions that echoed it, as the full weight of their collective focus seized him.

His amusement at their reaction softened a bit, remembering the girl who was the cause of it, whose kindness was offered without question or expectations but who was always repaid by having those she cared for leave her.

He remembered again the birthday he’d brought her that stolen bottle of whiskey. All that loneliness she bottled within her, that brimmed in her eyes; that he wondered if anyone else even noticed, or if all they saw were the smiles she offered, as she listened to other people’s hurts and grievances, and kept her own stored away like the priceless liquor on her top shelf, untouched.

He looked at the crew before him, who’d been so eager to ask about her, and wondered if she even knew. Given her unassuming nature—the generous heart that never put herself first, that never even considered that anyone else _would_ —probably not.

He glanced over at Red-Hair, still making no sign suggesting he’d overheard a single word, his smile sitting with the same, unwavering ease, but Ace knew happiness when he saw it. Only those who’d felt the opposite would ever know the real thing at a glance.

And so, “Is he?” Ace asked simply.

They had no answer to that, but he caught the sharpshooter’s smile, slanted with sober understanding, and Ace had heard enough from Luffy about the man’s own story to recognise where that look came from.

“Hey, Red-Hair,” he said later, as he moved to take a seat by the fire. The kegs had finally been opened, the ale running without pause like their laughter, and he might have said nothing at all and it wouldn’t have put a single hitch in the good mood, or have budged the smile on Red-Hair’s mouth, but he’d promised her this. This one little thing, when she could have asked for so much more, but then of course she wouldn’t have. Not her. “I forgot to mention it earlier, but Makino-san said to say hello.”

He saw the effect it had—the way the mere mention of her changed Red-Hair’s whole face, and wished suddenly that she could have seen  _that_ , because a blind man could have been present and he wouldn’t have missed it, or what it suggested.

He’d tell her, Ace decided, the thought a curiously fierce thing. If he made it back to East Blue before Red-Hair, he’d tell her she was loved, and how; that she’d made such a lasting impression even pirates who’d never met her in person wanted to know if she was  _happy_. And Ace knew better than most that particular longing, wanting to know the answer to that hard-to-voice question, the one that asked if you even mattered, but if anyone in the world deserved to be sure of it, it was her.

The grin that stretched across his whole face left no doubt of that, as Red-Hair let slip a too-quiet chuckle that was probably the most telling truth of all, even before he said, tenderly and wholly without pretence.

“She did, huh?”

 


End file.
